Ferenc Mező was a classics graduate from the University of Budapest. He became a teacher and director of a senior school in Budapest. Beginning in 1908 he published a series of books, notably on Greek history and Hungarian sport. In 1928 Mező won a gold medal for literature in the Arts Competition for his work Az olympiai játékok története (History of the Olympic Games). As the Dutch catalog notes, the jury only received “fragments”. The book was published in Hungarian in 1929, in English the same year, and in 1930 (with a preface by Theodor Lewald) and in 1935 in German editions comprising two appendices, a statistical listing of the names of the champions of the ancient Olympics and a short description of The Olympic Games of the Modern Era by Franz Miller. Beginning in 1932 he served as Secretary-General of the Hungarian Olympic Society, an organization of Olympic medal winners. After the war, he was the President of the Hungarian Scientific Sports and Physical Culture Association (1945-46), Head Supervisor of sports at the Ministry of Religion and Education (1945-48), and also worked as an Assistant Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Culture (1945-1953). In 1956 he published the important work The Modern Olympic Games, which attempted to make some sense of the names of the Olympics medalists in the early years of the movement. He owned an important collection of books, as well as an Olympic Museum, and tried several times in vain to reintroduce the art competitions. Mező was co-opted onto the IOC in January 1948 and served until his death in November 1961. Even his personal life was closely attached to the Olympic Movement, noting that one of his daughters was named “Olympia”.
Hungary